Russian Blog
This is a blog by JustRussian about learning Russian. You will find useful tips for learning Russian, Russian courses available in London, information about Russian culture and links to websites with information for students of Russian.
Learning Russian: Old-fashioned ways are best?
By Vlada 31 December 08
Languages and us: how do you learn to speak perfect Russian? A few comments from a Russian teacher about the methods and different approaches to language learning and teaching.
The real shock came when I started teaching Russian to groups in Kingston University, fresh after Moscow University, the Faculty of Law. I said the word “adjective” in front of my Russian class, and someone asked “what is an adjective?” Oh my God… My Moscow response would have been: “And what do you think you are doing at University if you don’t know what an adjective is?!” but I was on foreign territory so I tried to explain what it was. Which brought on another problem – how do you explain what an adjective is to someone who is not familiar with any language learning vocabulary? So I said: “It’s a word that describes another word, called a noun, and it tells you what kind of thing it is – white, or blue, or big or small…” And then I thought “How on earth am I going to explain the system of cases?” and almost decided to become a seamstress, rather than a Russian teacher and never go back to my Russian group class again… But it was a professional challenge, and I’ve been tackling it ever since.
The Russian and Eastern European system of education is still very old-fashioned, structured and academic. Pupils still sit in neat rows, two at each desk, listening to the teacher and keeping silent until asked. Languages are (or are supposed to be, with a qualified teacher) presented as a system, the components of which must be learned, drilled and taken for granted. Also, of course, in Slavic languages the grammar is so complex that it is simply impossible NOT to teach it. So in Russian lessons, children would have to learn all the cases, the genders, and the numerous endings and how they are formed. In English, on the contrary, native speakers can do without any grammar knowledge – the complicated verb system can be picked up because it’s intuitive and there are no cases or conjugations. The only “killer” point of English for its native speakers is spelling (it’s not intuitive, it’s ancient and often unpredictable) but it is not important for speaking the language. In Russian and other Slavic languages, it’s the other way round. Spelling is relatively easy but the grammar needs attention. So we all grow up learning and teaching the Russian language through grammar.
My first contact, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say clash, with the English system of language teaching took place in 1997 when we tried to write a book (a reader/textbook for advanced students of English, about the system of English education, ironically) with a British co-author from a British university. He came to Moscow, and we went to England, we got on well and had some fun times together but completely failed our task. He hated almost everything we contributed, and the other way round. Our meetings sometimes ended in heated arguments and door slamming … all because we could not agree on methods of presenting the material. The English teacher wanted everything to be vague and creative, while the Russian teachers wanted it to be conventional, rigidly structured and predictable. I even remember (God forgive me, I was young and presumptuous!) attempting to explain to him some points of English grammar…
The Anglo-American system of teaching languages is very foreign to us, especially the new “playful” and communicative methods of teaching. Teachers tend not to explain language points but illustrate them and lead the student towards understanding and interpreting grammar themselves (I often thought – please forgive me, Ladies and Gentlemen British teachers, for thinking so – do they not explain things for some good reason, or is it because they simply cannot explain it clearly and comprehensively?)
Can this approach be applied to learning Russian? It probably can be, but I would still explain things first. One of the rules of our profession is that you cannot expect students to learn anything unless you’ve given it to them first. A teacher in Russian is called “prepodavatel”, from the verb “davat’” – “to give”, so we’ve got to give the knowledge and make sure it sinks in. And then you can play games, make creative stories, chase each other around the room and even sing. I am afraid I personally like to explain, time and again, in the students’ native language, everything that can be explained! Because if you understand the system, you can use it. If you don’t understand it, you’ll be lost every single time when you have to speak Russian. Call me old-fashioned!
Sometimes my students in Russian lessons ask: and what about children? They learn to speak Russian without any grammar explanation! Well, they do and they don’t. Their brains are free, quick and ready to suck in all the information around them. They are immersed in the language completely, their whole life is dedicated to learning the world around them, and they do have a lot of guidance from the adults on how to use this or that word or phrase, and often even why it should be like that. Kids who don’t get much attention and guidance end up speaking not terribly well… Just like adults who have never learned the rules of the language end up making the same mistakes again and again.
And finally, just to show that I don’t and can’t really make any general conclusions on this subject, I can tell you that in my 9 year experience as a full time Russian teacher, my slowest progressing student took about half a year to learn the alphabet, and the quickest spoke fluent Russian, from nothing, in just three months. Both are British!